Funding for gender justice rarely fits neatly into a single funding category. It requires both front-line service and system-level advocacy and it’s hard to capture in an elevator pitch. This is where gender justice and trust-based philanthropy must come together.
Measuring prevention remains one of the greatest challenges in the fight for gender justice. Statistics Canada can count how many lives were lost to gender-based violence, but it cannot capture how many were saved through prevention and intervention programs. That absence of data doesn’t mean the impact isn’t real; it just means it’s harder to quantify.
As the largest national provider of gender-based-violence shelters and safe housing for women and gender-diverse people, YWCA Canada is intimately familiar with this complexity. Every day, YWCAs across the country respond with life-saving programs while also amplifying survivor voices and advocating for systemic change. Like many women-serving organizations, we’re busy doing the work, answering calls, evolving services, and responding to crises. And no one comes to us with just one issue. Gender injustice is intersectional, often showing up through poverty, unemployment, unstable housing, and declining mental or physical health.
Yet funding for gender justice remains precarious. It rarely fits neatly into a single funding category. It requires both front-line service and system-level advocacy: two sides of the same coin. The multiple levels of action required to achieve gender justice are hard to capture in a proposal, let alone an elevator pitch.
This is where gender justice and trust-based philanthropy must come together. Women-serving organizations know what to do. They know how to respond, with compassion, discretion, and urgency. As a wise soul once said, “If you want something done, give it to a busy woman.” That’s the reality of our sector: showing up, jumping in, and doing the work. Every day. Not another life. Not another statistic. Not on our watch.
What if funders trusted us the way our clients do when they share their stories, bring us their children, and ask for help at their most vulnerable points?
But balancing service delivery with the pursuit of funding is a constant struggle. What if women’s organizations didn’t have to spend so much time proving their worth to funders? What if funders trusted us the way our clients do when they share their stories, bring us their children, and ask for help at their most vulnerable points? To trust is a powerful and healing act. And with more trust, perhaps we can offer more healing, too.
To funders who truly want to achieve gender justice, here are four tangible ways you can partner meaningfully:
- Lead with trust. Those working on these issues every day know what is needed to achieve outcomes. Let your giving be guided by trust in the people and communities doing the work. Flexible, sustained investments, like Uber Canada’s Driving Change initiative, support organizations across the country working to improve women’s safety through a multi-pronged approach.
- Fund the whole person. No one has just one issue. Wrap-around services meet people where they are, with support that’s holistic and person-centred. Broadly scoped funding lets us do the same. Take the Slaight Family Foundation, which ignited YWCA’s National Emergency Survivor Support Fund that provides immediate, emergency support and additional wrap-around services for women and families fleeing violence, tailoring support to each survivor.
- Support those who care for others. Front-line workers are the heart of this work, yet fair wages and professional development are often underfunded. If we want sustainable impact, we must invest in the people delivering it. GreenShield Cares is an example of this, investing in both YWCA clients and the YWCA staff who support them.
- Small steps can struggle to shake the foundation of injustice, but a united, pan-Canadian movement is in position to create a seismic shift. With bold, coordinated action, we can crack open systems of inequality and rebuild something stronger in their place. Consider funding nationally coordinated efforts. The Cedrus Foundation is doing just that, investing in policy tool kits and national training for advocacy staff, helping to align local efforts into a powerful, collective, national voice.
Let’s not wait for another statistic to tell us what we already know. Let us give the resources to those who know what to do. The time to trust and heal is upon us.
